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news
Jess Varnish celebrates a gold medal and world record (© Dene Percy)Jess Varnish unfair dismissal case against British Cycling could lead to funding cut for Olympic athletes
A court case being brought by former track cyclist Jess Varnish against British Cycling could affect the funding of hundreds of Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
Telegraph Sport reports that lawyers acting for the 28-year-old will seek to prove that she was an employee of the governing body rather than having the distinct status that athletes funded through UK Sport have.
Varnish was the first athlete to make allegations of bullying within the Great Britain Cycling Team that led to the departure of former technical director Shane Sutton and an overhaul of British Cycling’s governance and management.
In April 2016, shortly after she raised her concerns, her funding was withdrawn, ostensibly because her performance was not at the required level.
She is now suing the organisation for unfair dismissal, sexual discrimination, victimisation and detrimental treatment, according to the Telegraph.
If her claim is successful, the newspaper says that up to 200 of the 1,100 UK Sport-funded athletes could see a reduction in their grants.
A source told the Telegraph: “The case could have profound consequences, “though what happens will depend on the HMRC’s response; if Jess Varnish was to win, it could force UK Sport to completely restructure its funding model.”
Besides the funding body potentially having to pay National Insurance and pensions contributions for athletes, the outcome of the case could also see some making backdated claims against UK Sport.
Currently, the athlete performance awards of up to £28,000 made by the organisation are tax-exempt and do not give employment rights to the athletes who benefit from them.
Should Varnish succeed, they could have to pay 20 per cent tax, with a similar amount cut from overall funding.
The case, which is being heard in Manchester, is due to start on Monday 10 December.
Varnish was stripped of her funding when she was dropped from the national squad in April 2016 on the basis that her performance was not at the level expected. The 28-year-old claims she was unfairly discriminated against.
If Varnish succeeds next week, sources anticipated it could lead to athletes paying 20 per cent tax on some form of centralised contract, with the same amount lost for their funding.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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27 comments
Would income tax status indicate, employed/ self employed? Just wondering.
She would have to declare her employment status on her tax return - employee or self employed and whether or not she contracted via a service company. If she was employed then her employer had to pay her NI, but she could have been employed by her own company and contracted her services out to British Cycling, in which case her own company would have been responsible for NI contributions - although these are easily (and legally) avoided. If she did have her own company then there's a risk of IR35 breach unless she had other commitments (e.g. sponsorship) that she put through the books. In her current case a judgement of IR35 breach by HMRC is probably what she's looking for since it would create a legal employer/employee relationship - at least in the eyes of HMRC.
Irrespective of her declared status at the time of her "employment", HMRC can challenge it long after the tax year closes; witness the BBC presenters who, with the BBC, are being taken to court for retrospective NI payments because HMRC considers the relationship to have been one of employer/employee, regardless of the actual contract between them.
The impending court case seems set to settle the 'self employed/ employee' question. Regardless of that judgement outcome, the fact is other female track cyclists, before and after the arguments about unfair treatment, have gone on to unprecedented success both on the Olympic and World championship stage. One thing for sure, the can of worms will be reopened!
"As for Varnish, didn't she fail to meet the targets set by her 'employers' and thus was let go for not meeting the standards required?"
In many contexts that is pretty much the definition of constructive dismissal (particularly where the targets were not notified in advance, or unequally applied) and thus illegal.
Is this the best use of that money given how it's not helped cycling as a whole in the UK?
The money wouldn't be spent on cycling infrastructure anyway. Athletes or bike routes just isn't a choice anyone in government is making.
Another subsidised athlete crying again. Get a proper job. The world doesn't advance any through people cycling in circles in a stadium.
Athletes - the world's most selfish people.
I'm sure you have an incredibly worthy job, but I for one have spent my life mending a few bikes and various other fairly pointless tasks, none of which advanced the world in any tangible way, but I still expect to be treated fairly by my employer.
That's just dumb, really. Armstrong (admittedly didn't ride in circles) is widely credited for contributing to the enormous increase in road cycling during the 2000's, He in turn inspired people like Wiggo and Thomas who both rode circles around a track. Literally hundreds of thousands of people have been inspired to riding, competing and better health by these few athletes riding, some in circles in a stadium. The world does advance through these things. Elite sports are aspirational and that is a really good thing.
(Elite) athletes are really focussed, and by that nature they are selfish, but we (the paying, watching, braying, betting public) demand that in our desire for faster times, greater national pride and presence and so on.
This is a person who has dedicated their life to a pursuit, in part, for our pleasure, but also to inspire us. She was treated differently because (i) she is female, and (ii) because she dared to complain about inequitable treatment and opportunity. It is pretty fair to complain about that regardless of your profession, or lack of.
What is not proper about being paid to ride a bike? What do any of us do that is so much more worthy than that?
And as for subsidised? She is only young. You are old. You have beyond a shadow of a doubt been the recipient of orders of magnitude greater public funds (education, health, subsidies to your industry, tax refunds etc etc etc) than a 20 year old lady has.
Check your privelege.
Eh? I thought she was on the sprint team?
Funding elite athletes and being successful has been shown to not have any positive effect on numbers cycling nor investment in general cycling/building proper cycling infra. over £130M for the last 4 cycles (incl leading up to Tokyo) has been spent on giving elite cyclists a wage/training etc. There also are bonus performance payments as far as I can tell from the money distributed.
Is this the best use of that money given how it's not helped cycling as a whole in the UK?
As for Varnish, didn't she fail to meet the targets set by her 'employers' and thus was let go for not meeting the standards required?
Dupe.
No. The performance variables were not fairly established.
Regarding your first point, the money would be a miniscule drop in a bucket towards infrastructure. However, the funding and support has been unfairly slanted towards prioritising the male road or track side for years, and has done nothing to help lessen inequality at UCI level.
To anyone attempting to victim blame Jess Varnish for speaking out: fuck you.
Can you expand on that or link to the details on how it was decreed unfair? Was she injured/not given targets, have other atrhletes been dropped from the elite programme for not meeting targets, how does her case differ specifically and if it doesn't would that open the doors for other athletes to take legal action against their former employers?
Isn't this what the court will decide??
Why argue about it now before the facts are known??
I thought that going by Dottigirl's comment this had already being decided as she's clearly stated it was unfair and somehow people on here are victim blaming her, maybe you can ask her for the inside info on this as she seems very sure of the outcome?
I have asked for more information regarding how Varnish was unfairly treated but didn't get a response.
I think dottigirl is pretty clear on what she thinks (the clue is in the last two words of her post) and that she doesn't need your validation or to provide more detail just because you seem to think she owes you, she doesn't... This is really simple: Varish is within her rights to take a case and that's what she has done, that is up to her not anyone else - or would you deny her that? As for that cases' validity we'll just have to wait and see what the trubinal/court, and not anyone else, thinks - you can read the court records then to see the details and draw your conclusions from a more informed base. ..
That information was pretty much all public domain at the time - e.g. they had monthly performance meetings but she wasn't informed there was any concern about hers (and there were no targets anyway), the way she got dumped on the phone just after the World Champs, that she'd accumulated more points than any other rider in the 2 year qualification period for the Olympics, had already qualified for the individual keirin and sprint events and consistently up with the top 4-5 riders in one lap events and so on. There was a lot of coverage at the time - Google is your friend if you're looking for more details.
I asked for some information, thanks for taking the time. Googling isn't always he;ful and doesn't always give you all the facts. As DG seemed to have the low down I thought it was appropriate to ask her for the details/specific link to the 'outcome'
Everytime the Varnish story is highlighted there are a set of people who say “She didn’t make the grade - end off “. I can understand that because most people don’t have detailed performance information. I am a track cycling coach, but with no connection to Jess Varnish. When Jess was paired with Vic Pendleton in the team sprint they were 2 of the best in the world. Then VP retired and the GB team sprint team started to struggle, because they didn’t have a fast enough 2nd lap rider, BUT JessV was still the fastest 1st Lap rider GB had and amongst the top 6 in the World. In the 2015 World Champs she posted 19.037, in the 2016 World Champs she rode 18.837 a month later she was cut from the program. GB have spent the last 2.5 years trying to find anyone who can go that fast. Generally they have been bouncing around 19.3 but last weekend Katy Marchant finally managed a fraction under 19s, but still 0.1 slower than JessV. So it’s difficult to see how JessV didn’t make the grade in 2016 when it’s taken GB 2.5 years to get close to the level she was at as Team Sprint lead out.
Were there other reasons ? Well GB management had screwed up the points accumulation process to get a Team Sprint entry in the Rio Olympics and JessV was critical of that. I don’t know that was the reason, but given the public report on the management culture at the time it certainly could be a factor.
As others have said - JessV should have her case heard by an independent process.
Everytime the Varnish story is highlighted there are a set of people who say “She didn’t make the grade - end off “. I can understand that because most people don’t have detailed performance information. I am a track cycling coach, but with no connection to Jess Varnish. When Jess was paired with Vic Pendleton in the team sprint they were 2 of the best in the world. Then VP retired and the GB team sprint team started to struggle, because they didn’t have a fast enough 2nd lap rider, BUT JessV was still the fastest 1st Lap rider GB had and amongst the top 6 in the World. In the 2015 World Champs she posted 19.037, in the 2016 World Champs she rode 18.837 a month later she was cut from the program. GB have spent the last 2.5 years trying to find anyone who can go that fast. Generally they have been bouncing around 19.3 but last weekend Katy Marchant finally managed a fraction under 19s, but still 0.1 slower than JessV. So it’s difficult to see how JessV didn’t make the grade in 2016 when it’s taken GB 2.5 years to get close to the level she was at as Team Sprint lead out.
Were there other reasons ? Well GB management had screwed up the points accumulation process to get a Team Sprint entry in the Rio Olympics and JessV was critical of that. I don’t know that was the reason, but given the public report on the management culture at the time it certainly could be a factor.
As others have said - JessV should have her case heard by an independent process.
[/quote I read that she was slower than her past performances and overweight, she was only the 4th fastest. She asked for a rider that was faster than she was to be dropped so she could ride for GB.
Isnt this what Nicole Cooke wrote about in her book The Breakaway?
Ridiculously aggressive and insulting, are you confusing your opinion with fact? Are you trying to censor people for speaking out against her speaking out?
The problem with sports is that all the sport science, targets and results in the World don't always dictate the winner and can't always be seen as 'fair'. All the results in the Giro told us Froome wasn't going to win until one day... Anybody see Leicester win the premier league? Boris Becker's first Wimbledon crown...
Sport can be about gut feelings, instinct, relationships, hell even taking a risk.
At the end of the day, the coach could simply say they were paid to make difficut decisions in an elite sporting team and did what they thought best...
This seems to me like a perfect description of why Jess V is right to bring this case. A coach being able to run a team like his own fiefdom, playing with people's lives and livelihoods has got to be a bad thing.
But that's all sportsmen, women, children. In fact it's entertainment too. Democracy.
You cannot quantify everything by numbers. In terms of employment status she can argue a case. In terms of getting dropped she cannot.
Why should it not apply to all sports people? Just look at the recent cases of BBC presenters to see that employment rights apply to entertainers as much as the rest of us.
If my employer wishes to dismiss me on the grounds of poor performance, they need to prove they have made it clear to me what good performance looks like, explained how my performance doesn’t reach those thresholds and attempt to enable me to make the grade. Gone are the days of just being able to dismiss someone because their face doesn't fit and blame it on poor performance. You need to be able to back that up with documentary evidence. When I say gone; the non-disclosure agreement/compromise agreement and a wedge of cash do a good job of getting around this, but you do still have the right to your day in court too.
Without knowledge of the specific case made against JV with regard to her failing performance it’s hard to be specific, but the principal of her case is a good one in my opinion.
I hope she wins. If she had been treated with the respect any individual deserves we'd still have a world class Women's Team Sprint member who would now be at her peak. Unfortunaley some of the coaches who appear to have contrubuted to the mistreatment are still employed as if they are is some sort of "Guru's"! The athletes are the talent; British cycling should be reminded of that.
Not really her fault though, is it?
The haphazard nature of the current funding position pretty much precludes an awarding body of having sufficent duty of care over their beneficiaries to ensure the type of horrendous treatment she received doesn't happen. So in order to get justice, she is forced to claim a position she should already have in receipt of sponsorship on an ongoing basis - that of an employee.
I hope she wins. And I also hope British cycling gets a lot more sponsorship than it does at present. Such a big economy in this country. Why can't we do better by our athletes?